A debt ceiling vote is creeping its way into the government funding fight.

The House Republican leadership, facing rank-and-file GOP lawmakers skeptical that the party is willing to defund or delay Obamacare, is weighing ways to tie an increase in the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling to a government funding bill, which must be enacted before Oct. 1, according to several leadership aides involved in the discussions.

One option under consideration is an accelerated vote on the debt ceiling. There is discussion in House Republican leadership circles about setting a debt ceiling vote before Sept. 30. If Republican leaders show in the next few weeks how they will use the debt ceiling to delay Obamacare, it will display that the party’s brass is serious about an all-or-nothing legislative brawl with Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama. That could help ease the passage of the continuing resolution to fund the government.

In discussions among leadership aides, the CR would defund Obamacare, and the debt ceiling would include a delay of the health care law.

The debt ceiling package could also include tons of conservative goodies: construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, entitlement reform and principles for tax reform, according to GOP sources involved in the discussions. All of these random policies would help Republicans attract 217 GOP votes.

Highlighting the urgency of the debt ceiling issue, the House Republican Conference on Monday announced that they scheduled a session focused on the debt cap. On Wednesday, top leadership policy will “provide members with information” about the debt ceiling, according to an email sent to lawmakers Monday.

They are searching for a new strategy because Speaker John Boehner and the House Republican leadership have a trust problem. As they circle throughout their conference trying to persuade lawmakers to pick a fight on Obamacare as part of the debt ceiling negotiations instead of a government funding bill, they are finding a lot of skeptics. Many House Republicans feel that they are being duped by the leadership, who earlier in the year had advised them to fight over the CR, not the debt ceiling, to fund the government.

So top House Republicans are considering ways to pair those fights. This would allow them to avoid a politically disastrous government shutdown, shift the onus to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on hiking the debt ceiling and maximize their own leverage.

The GOP leadership’s tentative strategy holds peril for Republicans. There is next to no chance that Senate Democrats and the White House will support a yearlong delay in the health care law. And in reality, senior House Republicans aren’t willing to shut down the government or default on the national debt in order to defund or delay the health care law. When the Senate strips out the defund provision and declines to delay the law as part of the debt ceiling talks, House Republicans will find themselves in the same situation.

GOP leadership intends to formally announce its plan Wednesday at the House Republican Conference’s closed-door meeting in the Capitol. Leadership expects a Friday vote on a continuing resolution to keep the government running. Its previous plan, authored by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), never reached the House floor.

“Our members are ready to have the fight for the American people,” Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise (R-La.) told POLITICO on Monday. “To have a one-year delay of Obamacare, there are a number of tools in the legislative process to get us there whether it’s the CR or the debt ceiling. I think it would be helpful if leadership made it real clear which area they were willing to plant the flag and fight.”

“In the meantime, it would also be good to put a debt ceiling vote out there that also included a one-year delay of Obamacare as well as some of the other reforms that we’ve outlined in our budget to get us to balance and get the economy moving again,” Scalise added.

Senior House aides say no final decision has been made on the timing or content of the CR or debt ceiling package. But the push for a yearlong delay in the implementation of Obamacare is clearly gaining traction among House Republicans.

Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) penned a bill that would delay the controversial health care law for a year while funding government for a year. He has nearly 60 sponsors. GOP leadership privately has discussed allowing a vote on Graves’s bill as an amendment to a leadership-sponsored plan.

“The proposal that we have put forward has unified our conference like we haven’t seen in many many months.” Graves said in an interview with POLITICO on Monday. “It’s given everyone something to coalesce around that meets the objectives that we all want to do — that is keep the government open and protect our constituents from the health care law that has been passed, and that’s why our proposal has generated so much support while momentum continues to grow.”

“The debt limit — there’s just nothing to negotiate on,” said a top Senate Democratic aide. “If they want to shut down the government or default on the national debt, that’s just not a real plan.”

That divergence in strategy was evident in a closed Republican Study Committee staff meeting on Monday. Neil Bradley, the Cantor’s top policy aide, was describing the leadership’s strategy for the upcoming fiscal fights.

Then an aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) stood up and said that House Republicans should use the government funding debate to defund Obamacare. A staffer working for Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) said that the Cruz aide wasn’t dealing in reality because the president and Senate aren’t going to stop the health care law. Senate and House Republicans, the Culberson aide said, should be working together — not against each other. The Culberson staffer got a hearty round of applause.